Soul Eater: New Vegas

By Vivalarapture

Chapter 10, RepConn

"Watch your step!" I remind Soul, pointing at the railroad tracks in front of us. Soul flings his hands in the air, "Look out everybody! There's a railroad here! Girl says we have to watch our step! You better look out, OX!"

I roll my eyes and smack his arm as he walks by. I'm honestly just happy he has taken to my floating robot friend. I expect most people to turn and run at the story of how I acquired him, but Soul simply said, "That's cool." and dropped the subject.

Human contact is much appreciated, considering I've spent the last few days in silence due to OX's lack of a voice box, no matter how snarky that human contact has been.

The RepConn Test Site is at the end of a one way road, secluded from the rest of the wasteland and surrounded by mountains. OX's constant hum distracts from the silence that envelops our group. Other than the soft padding of our footsteps, the only sound is the occasional sassy comment. I'm not exactly sure what to say to my new companion.

I glance over at him, his wine colored eyes sharp and taking in the expanse of desert before us. He holds a tight grip on his rifle and I can tell he's nervous about leaving the town he has called home for so long now.

"Hey, Soul," His eyes flicker over to me, waiting for me to continue, "So if we have to go into RepConn, how are you going to fight with a sniper rifle? I was thinking maybe I could lend you one of my pistols?"

He grimaces at my proposal, his lip curling up in discontent. "I guess you're right."

I grin and pull one of the guns from my waistband, handing it to him. He takes it begrudgingly, but I know it's better than him not having a proper weapon for an enclosed space.

The path starts winding into the mountains, with broken down cars littering the road. I stop as I notice a dead body in front of me, it's a dirty yellow colored skeleton looking creature. It seems to glow, even in the bright sunlight, emitting a wafting stench that burns my eyes. I recoil, nudging it with my boot. "What is this thing?" I ask, disgusted with what lay before me.

Soul walks past, not giving the thing another glance, "It's a ghoul. One of the things we're going to kill." He puts a hand to his head and groans, "Oh man, it's one of the glowing ones. Get away from that, quick. They emit radiation."

I quickly step away, still confused, "I've seen a ghoul before but he didn't look anything like this. And what do you mean glowing one?"

Soul stops and turns around, looking at me like I'm a lunatic, "Have you been living in one of those vaults all your life or something?"

I bite the inside of my cheek, shuffling my feet awkwardly, "Not exactly."

He crosses his arms in front of his chest, eyes squinted in disbelief, "So, where did you grow up? Why don't you know anything?"

I glare at him, a hand automatically moving to my hip. "That's not true at all!" I say, stomping my foot. "I know a lot of things. Just.. Not as much as I should I guess.."

Soul lets his arms fall to his side, "Okay, I'm a little lost."

I sigh and continue onwards, as to not deter our adventure by our conversation, "My name is Girl because I don't know who I was before. Before I got shot, that is. A few months ago I was shot in the head and I can't remember anything before that."

Soul shakes his head, laughing, "I knew there was something a little off about you. That explains it."

I stick my tongue out at him, "I could say the same about you."

I burst out laughing as he trips over a crack in the road while trying to cross his eyes at me. I look up after catching my breath and admire the structure in front of us. The road goes under an enormous tunnel, chipped and worn, but still standing. The ground is littered with army equipment, some looking older than others. It looks like an NCR check point that has been abandoned.

Soul whistles and kicks at an empty ammunition case, "I wonder what happened here." He muses, digging around in another tool box. I shrug, walking over to a table with a checkers set on it, "Who knows."

There are bottle caps on the board and I pull my pack off and sweep the caps into my bag. Soul calls out to me, "Hey! I found some ammo over here. Find anything?" I 'hmm'ed noncommittally, moving around items on a shelf to my left.

I notice a few grenades lying behind a box and I grin wildly, putting them in my pack as well. Soul walks up to me, shouldering the pack he had been putting ammo in, "Let's keep going, okay?"

I nod, patting OX on the head as he floats by. The robot wiggles in the air, almost like he is trying to shake off my touch. I giggle and run to catch up with him.

The road curves out after the tunnel and the mountains are clear on the horizon. It's actually very beautiful and I'm happy to see something pretty about the Wasteland. There is a huge raggedy old metal building at the bottom of the hill, with two pointed towers beside it. As we walk further down, I see a big rocket statue at the bottom.

Soul grunts and kneels down, pulling out his sniper rifle, "I hear something." He whispers, aiming his rifle down the hill. I watch him, intrigued, as he slowly inhales and then holds his breath as he waits for the enemy. My vision starts to fade, and before I can call out to Soul, I feel myself falling to the ground. The last thing I hear is the crack of a shot being fired and a garbled call of my name.

"Daddy, why do you breathe like that when you're shooting?" I felt a hand rest on my shoulder as the blurred figure of a man pushed a sniper rifle into my hand, "It makes aiming much easier. Here, why don't you try?" I felt my younger self freeze in fear. This was my father's gun, and I was told I was never to touch it.

He laughed and helped me hold the gun correctly. "It's okay, I promise. Someday you'll have to learn anyway." He scooted back to watch me, and his figure became clear for only a moment. A flash of red hair and green eyes that looked so much like mine. The armor across his chest glistened like it had been shined for hours.

I nodded, and inhaled just like he had taught me, waiting for the man in my sight to stop walking. As soon as the man slowed, I exhaled and pulled the trigger, lodging a bullet in the mans torso.

I squealed and threw my arms around my father, "I did it!" He patted my head, his pride evident in my skill. "You sure did, sweetie."

I grab my head as I come to, groaning at the weight on my eyes. I manage to pull my eyelids up and am greeted with Soul's face not two inches from mine. I screech and fling myself back, hitting my shoulder blade on a particularly sharp rock. I hiss, putting a hand to my back as I try to get up.

Soul puts a hand out to help me and I take it, trying to get my vision back. He glares at me, his arms crossed in front of his chest, "What was that all about? You pass out and leave OX and me to deal with all those damn ghouls, WHILE trying to protect you? You didn't even mention feeling sick earlier."

I scowl right back at him, rubbing the sore spot on my back, "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't know it was going to happen."

I notice a large gash across his forearm and my anger is immediately drained, "Hey, are you okay?"

He flips his hair out of his face and grumbles that he's fine. I step forward, pulling a Stimpack from my pack, "I don't have too many more of these, but that looks gnarly."

I pull off the cap and hand it to him, digging around in my pack for some gauze. He takes them both and thanks me, sighing in relief when the Stimpack starts to do its work.

There are six ghoul bodies on the ground and I chuckle sheepishly, "I'm glad to know I can trust you when I fall out like that. Thanks. I'll try my best to yell or something, when I start to feel faint."

Soul grunts, "It's fine. Does this happen often?"

I shrug, being careful to watch my step as we walk down the hill, "Not really. Side effect of the head wound I guess."

I'm just not ready to explain that I'm having blurred flashbacks about my past. I barely know him, but it somehow feels wrong to be keeping it from him. I shake my head quickly, ignoring an odd stare from Soul. I'm not going to tell him. We're traveling together, that's all.

I shuffle down the hill towards RepConn, slipping and sliding every few steps.

"Slow down!" Soul calls out. "You're gonna get us killed if we rush in there like this."

I turn around and face him, my face contorting into a scowl, "What do you mean?"

"Here's the thing, you need to stop thinking like a front line soldier and start thinking like a sniper. We can't go barreling into a hostile zone like that. We need to identify how many enemies there are, who we can kill quietly, and who we need to get closer to attack."

I clear my throat, feeling a little disappointed in myself for not thinking, but still a little irked that he called me out on it anyway, "I'm... sorry. Thanks for the insight. I guess I still do have a lot to learn." With that, I realize I'm not traveling alone anymore. I need to think first, act later.

Soul ruffles my hair, "Also, I need you to do something for me." I nod, eager to listen now. "During my NCR days, we conducted research on any mechanics we could get our hands on, and by that, I mean we had to steal shit. Your buddy, OX, was one of those things. He's an EyeBot, used by the Enclave to broadcast propaganda around the East coast. Although, this model looks like it was altered by someone. I won't be able to tell who, but my point is, usually these robots come with a Passive Mode."

"Passive Mode?"

"Each robot comes with two modes: Passive and Aggressive. He's obviously set on Aggressive Mode, meaning he'll attack anything hostile on sight-"

"Isn't that a good thing?" I interrupt, thinking back to how OX had saved my life by attacking enemies first.

"It's a good thing for the front lines of war, but for us snipers, that's a very bad thing. If we're going to approach an area and have an edge on the enemy, we need to scope out the area. And for that, we need to set him on Passive Mode. So, he'll only attack things we attack first. Is that alright?"

I glance over at OX, humming to himself. "Yeah, that should be fine..." I start to get nervous as Soul opens OX's back panel. He flips a switch and OX's antenna's twitch, seeming to relax back; less alert.

"If you ever feel you need to switch him back, there's a switch on the back here."

He waves me over and I take in the view of the open panel on the back of OX. There are three switches and a bright green button. He points at the first switch, "This is for what I just did, Passive and Aggressive Mode. Right for Aggressive, left for Passive. The second switch is for how close or how far he'll follow you. Right now, he's close, which is fine. The third switch is for waiting. You can set him to wait in certain place and he won't move until you activate him again. He'll still be armed, so he can continue protecting himself. I'm guessing you didn't find a remote with him, did you?"

I shake my head, still attempting to wrap my brain around all this information. OX seems too sentient for all of these buttons and switches.

"Alright, we'll make do with what we have." He presses the green button and a compartment opens beside the control panel, "This is a storage space; a place to keep your caps, small weapons, or anything else you can't seem to hold."

OX buzzes loudly and shakes away from Soul, obviously done being man handled. I giggle and pat him on the side, "OX, you're so useful!" He seems to be content with my praise and doesn't float off like it looked like he was going to do.

Soul shakes his head, muttering something about artificial sass. "Alright, let's take care of those ghouls now. Are you ready to do this the right way?" I scoff, but follow him begrudgingly. As much as it kills me to not be the leader, I decide to listen. Soul might be able to teach me some useful techniques.

Approaching the RepConn building, Soul flags me over behind a road block. "Okay, so check the area out. Tell me how many enemies you see." I squint my eyes, looking from side to side. A roundabout circles the rocket statue, with two staircases leading up to the building. There are three ghouls roaming the street. "Three!" I exclaim, probably louder than I should've.

He quickly places his hand on the top of my head and shoves me below the roadblock. "Okay, besides the fact you might've just blown our cover, you missed four." He slowly lifts his head above the cement roadblock and then waves me up. "Look again. There may be three on the road, but look on top of the staircases, two more. And one behind the car over there," he points to a car a few yards away from the roundabout. A ghoul stands next to the hood.

"You said there were four I missed? You only called out three."

He turns his head towards me, a smirk playing on his lips, "Find the last."

I scan the area for the missing ghoul. The road has three, plus the two above the staircases, plus the one behind the car. As hard as I try, I can't seem to find the last one. As I'm about to admit defeat, the top of a head appears behind another car on the left of the roundabout. "There!" I yell, quickly covering my mouth. All the ghouls in the area shift their heads in my direction.

"Shit!" Soul shouts, sniper in hand.

Before I can say another word, Soul fires a shot at the car near a group of the ghouls. I'm just about to chastise his bad aim when the car explodes and all I can hear is the ringing in my ears. Two flaming ghouls fly a few feet through the air and fall to their demise.

A couple flashes of red pass by my face, turning a ghoul to ash. I feel the heat from OX's lasers on my cheek. "OX! Be careful!"

I reach for my rifle as Soul fires a few more shots. I look through the sight and search the area for the next enemy. There are charred ghoul bodies everywhere, and I count one, two, three, four, five, six and seven. I drop the rifle to my side and stare dumbfounded towards Soul, "What.. How.. Huh?"

Soul leans his head towards me, walking closer, "What happened? Are you hurt?" I shrug, scuffing the dirt with my boot, "No.. I.. I just wanted to take out at least one of them."

The smile twitching at the corners of Soul's mouth is almost worth the admission.

I pick through the ghouls' shredded pants pockets, cringing at the sight and smell of decay on their rotting bodies. The corpses are sparse with supplies; some with nothing at all and others with two or three bottle caps left on their person. None of them have stimpacks, but I guess if they had them they would still be alive.

We approach the stairs and Soul mutters, "Eyes open. Anything in the area will have heard the ruckus we just made." It's quiet as we slink up the stairs, no sound other than OX's hum. As we hop up on the last step at the top of the staircase, I reel back at the sight of more ghoul bodies littering the entrance. A few of the bodies are garbed in a tinted green and brown robe. The high collared robe has a silver pin near the neck and is split at the waist with trousers underneath.

"I wonder why they're wearing these funny robes?"

Soul shrugs, nudging the green tinted corpse with his foot, "I don't know, honestly, maybe a cult thing or something? There's a lot of those these days.. Now, let's keep moving. We have a job to do." I stare at the lifeless body for a moment before turning my view to the entrance of the building.

Approaching the door, Soul reminds me, "Alright, so now that we're entering an enclosed space, we can do what you usually do: Shoot first, ask questions later."

I giggle sheepishly, pushing the door open.

The building has the usual state of decay as the rest of the wasteland. A ten-foot rocket is hanging from the ceiling that, ironically, looks like the surface of the moon. It's only from the rotting pieces falling over the years, but it's still grimly beautiful.

Suddenly a voice from an intercom on the wall, covered in blood, begins speaking, "Hey! Can you hear me? I need you to take the big metal staircase at the east end of the building up! And, hurry!" Soul lowers his rifle after he realizes it was just a box talking to us.

"Who are you?" I ask, approaching the box.

"Who I am doesn't matter, smoothskin. Stop wasting time and get up here!" As I'm about to ask another question, Soul interrupts, "Got it."

I look over at him, raising my arms, "What the hell? How do we know we can trust him?" He shrugs, anything he was going to say is cut off as we hear footstep clattering through the halls. I step back, stumbling over an unknown presence. Rapidly spinning around, a yelp escapes my mouth.

"What the hell is that?!" I scream, staring at a nine-foot tall blue beast lying on the ground beside me. "No time!" Soul replies as he reaches for the hand on my pistol and places it in a readied position for me. Feral ghouls pour into the room from every angle, "We've got shit to take care of."